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Origin and history

The Musée du Temps de Besançon is housed in the Granvelle Palace, an architectural jewel of the Italian Renaissance built between 1532 and 1540. The palace, commissioned by Nicolas Perrenot de Granvelle, is the guardian of the seals and advisor to Charles Quint.It housed collections of art and books, inventoried in the 17th century by Abbé Boisot. These treasures, opened to the public in 1694, gave birth to the library and the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Besançon, the oldest museum in France.

After the extinction of the Granvelle lineage in 1637, the palace gradually deteriorated. It was listed as a historic monument in 1842 and acquired by the city in 1864. Despite ambitious projects such as that of Eugene Viollet-le-Duc in 1870, it was only in 1988 that major restoration works were undertaken. The Museum of Time, inaugurated in 2002, finds its place there, combining local history and watchmaking heritage.

The museum celebrates the watchmaking heritage of Besançon, born in the late eighteenth century with the arrival of Swiss watchmakers like Laurent Megevand. The city became the French capital of watchmaking in the 19th century, with the creation of the School of Watchmaking in 1860 and the Observatory in 1882. The collections, rich in 1,500 watches and 2,000 engravings, illustrate the evolution of time measurement techniques from the Renaissance to modern microtechniques.

Among the masterpieces are the Leroy 01, "shows the most complicated in the world" (1904), and a 13.11 meter Foucault pendulum, proving the rotation of the Earth. The museum combines historical heritage, with 17th century hangings and portraits of the Granvelle family, and scientific innovations, exploring the link between watchmaking, physics and nanotechnology. Its architecture, blending old and modern, reflects this duality.

The Granvelle Palace, with its tower overlooking the citadel, also embodies Besançon's political history. He welcomed Louis XIV in 1683, who nicknamed him "the Louvre bisontin". Today, the Time Museum is a unique place in Europe, combining art, science and industrial memory, supported by the European Union and local authorities.

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